


Soft Things

by Xela



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Catholic Guilt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, self sacrificing idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3795514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xela/pseuds/Xela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not the <i>things</i> that make Matt soft. It’s just one thing. One person, against whom Matt has no defenses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Things

Matt stands amidst the wreckage of his apartment, Stick’s words ringing in his ears. 

He does surround himself with soft things. It doesn’t make him soft. They’re just things, easily replaced or left behind. They make the world bearable; remind him why he does what he does, that there’s more than fists against flesh and powerful people trying to fuck over the less fortunate in the world. Just because he has them doesn’t mean he _needs_ them.

And since Stick’s pathologically unable to form attachments to anything, he doesn’t see that it’s not the _things_ that make Matt soft. It’s just one thing. One person, against whom Matt has no defenses.

Foggy.

Who forces him to be better, reminds him he’s not just a warrior but a person who deserves good things. The one thing he can never leave behind. Even if he’s counting down the days until Foggy does. It may come sooner than expected, if the way Foggy’s heart races when he’s talking to Karen means anything.

Matt lies against his silk sheets and lets the silence of his apartment slip away as he immerses himself in the cacophony of Hell’s Kitchen.

***

Foggy finds Matt bleeding on the floor and knows. 

Matt wakes up on his couch, hurting, and Foggy’s voice as cold as he’s ever heard. Anger and pain eclipse everything about Foggy Matt’s come to know; his heart beats boldly in his anger. He’s had at least three beers, waiting for Matt to wake up. He steels himself for Foggy’s anger.

“I thought we were friends.”

Matt doesn’t say, _We’ve never been friends. Calling us friends is an insult to what you mean to me._

They stumble over Claire, the explosions, the dead cops. That hurts, the accusations, but Matt has always been good at taking a punch. He lets Foggy ask his questions, and answers honestly, baldly. Gives up everything to Foggy, lets him see the box, because it’s always been his for the asking. He’s just never known what questions to ask.

He listens to Foggy’s conversation with Karen, and for once Foggy’s heartbeat doesn’t tick up talking to her. It keeps on its steady, angry pace. Matt feels a twisted, temporary kind of relief, that’s very short lived, because the questions start up again and Foggy has never been a fool.

Talking about his father still hurts. Talking about Stick hurts, for similar reasons he doesn’t dwell upon. And with every word, every confession, Foggy’s heart ratchets up, the sweat gathers on his skin. Matt’s never seen Foggy truly _scared_ about something and never wants to again—especially when he’s the source—but he owes it to Foggy not to deflect.

“You can hear a heartbeat? From across the room?“ Again, words fail him. He can hear **_a_** heartbeat from across the room; he can hear Foggy’s from a block away if he needs to. He knows Foggy’s heart better than anything else in this world. It grounds him, keeps the world at bay, reminds Matt that he’s human and that’s okay. Reminds him what it is he’s fighting for.

“Wait. Are you telling me that since I’ve known you, anytime I wasn’t telling the truth, you knew? And what? You just…played along?” 

“Basically.” 

“If you weren’t half dead I would kick your ass, Murdock! Am I lying about that?”

“No.” He’s not, is the thing. He would try and Matt…would let him. There’s no defense against Foggy Nelson.

“…was anything ever real with us?” Matt would rather get stabbed in the side again that hear the betrayal in Foggy’s voice. Than know he’s caused such doubt.

Because Foggy’s the only _real_ thing in his life.

***

There’s a lull in the accusations. Matt’s managed to sit up on the couch, which was probably not his best idea. Foggy’s sitting with his back to the sofa, an untouched beer warming on the table. Everything about him screams defeat, and Matt hates himself for being the person that did this.

“So you’ve known? All this time?” There’s hurt buried in Foggy’s voice, a hint of tears on the air and Matt wants to fix it so badly. Maybe he can.

“Yeah,” Matt says on a sigh. 

“Christ. Sorry! I meant fuck.” Foggy slumps down and covers his face.

“It’s…it’s really not that bad, Foggy. You should go for it.”

“Excuse me?” 

“I know you think it’s weird. But you should really go for it with Karen. She’s into you. Her heart speeds up too.” It may be the hardest thing he’s ever said, but Foggy deserves all the soft things in life.

“Karen,” Foggy repeats, oddly flat. 

“Yes? You have no idea how distracting it gets whenever you two are in the same room. You both…” he makes a vague hand gesture meant to evoke the kind of nauseatingly adorable love teenagers are capable of. “It’s like two drums beating out of sync.”

“Wow. Wow. Okay.” Matt smiles grimly and lets his head fall back against the couch. He’s always been good at doing the things that hurt the most. “Yeah, not what I’m talking about.” 

“What?” Matt snaps up and pays for it as blinding pain surges through him. Terrible idea. Foggy’s silence feels damning. Judgmental. Matt’s body tenses, ready to fight, to take on whatever is hurting his…Foggy. “What _are_ you talking about, Foggy?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?” Foggy’s anger burns over Matt’s senses. He rolls onto his knees and faces Matt, so close. “Fine. This is not going to be one of those things we ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. We’re going to deal with it like adults. I love you. I’ve been crazy about you since, like, five minutes after I saw your stupidly handsome duck face. Thanks for not being an asshole about it, I guess, but all in all I think I’d have preferred to live in ignorance on that one. But I cant, we can’t, so. Yeah.”

Matt…has no idea what to say. Foggy’s looking at him defiantly, and while his heartbeat is a little elevated from general agitation, it’s fairly steady.

“I…didn’t know.” He sounds incredibly pathetic. Lost.

“You just told me what I had for lunch yesterday. You can hear my heartbeat, and my breathing, and a phone call if you want…and you’re going to sit there and tell me you had _no idea_ about something that was a running joke in my Punjabi class.”

“You. You don’t…”

“Don’t tell me how I feel, Matthew.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. It’s just. You don’t.” Matt takes a moment to collect his thoughts. “Your heart doesn’t race when you talk to me. Or when you touch me. You don’t smell like…teenage hormones when we’re close. You don’t sweat or stutter or ramble. I’ve seen you with people you like, Foggy. With Karen.”

“Jesus, Matt,” Foggy says, like he feels _sorry_ for the poor blind kid and Matt grabs onto the spike of anger that flares up because it’s better than feeling so exposed.

“I told you I never asked for your—“ Foggy’s hand gently cradles Matt’s face, his thumb resting against Matt’s lips and silencing him.

“Matt. That stuff. The, the racing hearts and sweaty palms and the stupid rambling, all the blushing. That’s not love. That’s nerves. That’s ‘how much of a fool can I make of myself and still live tomorrow’ and ‘will she like me when she finds out more about me’ and ‘could this be forever.’ That’s sex and lust and, and being uncertain about new things. We’re so far beyond all that, Matty. We got through it all in college. You already know that I’m an unforgivable dork. You know exactly how dumb I can be, you were beside me for just about every stupid thing I ever did. You know every important, embarrassing, ridiculous thing about me, and you’re still around. I just found out you’ve been hiding this massive, INSANE thing from me and you better believe I’m going to be pissed for a while but I’m not going anywhere. Because I don’t have to wonder if you’re forever. You’re stuck with me, buddy. No matter what.”

It’s all true. Foggy’s sitting here, being braver than Matt ever has, and his heartbeat is steady as a rock. It’s the same heartbeat that got Matt through college parties, through frustrating days when he couldn’t find the braille versions of the books he needed, when it hurts to breathe because he cracked three ribs but he soldiers through because Foggy’s counting on him.

Didn’t even falter when he was confessing his love for Matt. Which means Matt’s such an undeniable, unshakable part of Foggy’s world that there’s nothing they won’t get through. Nothing that won’t see Foggy standing by his side, come hell or high water.

And nothing Foggy will ask him to change.

“You love me.” It doesn’t come out with enough wonder in it, because Matt had had that stripped out of him well before Sticks, but…

“I’ve TOLD you that,” Foggy says. He’d told his mother he loved Matt once. But he doesn’t just mean in the romantic sense. Foggy has called him his brother and his best friend in the same conversation before, and Matt realizes that maybe Foggy agrees than _friend_ is a weak, watered down facsimile of what they are. Matt just…wasn’t giving him enough credit.

“You _love_ me.” Foggy flushes, a wave of extra heat turning the reds brighter in Matt’s vision, and Matt grins.

“Dude. Come on. Give me a break.”

“No,” Matt says, face hurting from smiling. “I don’t think I will.” He snakes one leg around Foggy’s thighs and fists a hand in Foggy’s shirt. It’s laughably easy to make Foggy to sprawl over him, hands braced on either side of Matt, body heat quickly warming the space between them.

Matt’s always been better with actions than words. He leans in, inhales the unique scent of Foggy and slides their cheeks together, loving the way his scruff feels against Foggy’s smooth-shaven skin. He lets his senses guide him, until his lips ghost against Foggy’s, their breath mingling. He’s a hair’s breadth away; one tiny shift would have them kissing.

“Your heartbeat,” Matt says, smiling broadly, “is racing.”

“Is this going to be a Thing?” Foggy asks as Matt lets his hands trail up Foggy’s chest. “It’s going to be a Thing, isn’t it?”

“You said we were past this part.”

“No, no, that is not what I said!” Foggy is, for lack of a better word, _adorable_ when he’s earnest. “We’re past the, the nervous this-is-only-lust-and-or-sex aspect. This is _love_ Matty, I’m entitled to a steady AND a fast heartbeat!”

Matt laughs, loud and joyous, and presses it against Foggy’s lips. Shares it with the best thing he’ll ever have.

They’re just getting to the good part, where Matt loses himself in Foggy, when one of his stitches pulls and Matt’s choking back a gasp of pain. He’s pretty successful, but Foggy knows him and immediately starts fussing, threatening to call Claire back. Matt’s disappointed, especially when Foggy helps him shuffle into bed. He wants to touch, and taste, and share everything with Foggy, but the man refuses to cooperate. Just spoons up behind Matt, scrubbing a hand through his hair, soft and soothing. He smiles against Matt’s shoulder and says, “The fast _and_ the steady, Matty. We have time.”


End file.
